HANNIBAL, MO. -- After taking input from merchants, talking about the design and weighing the cost, work on Hannibal's Main Street sidewalk project is finally underway.
The amount of progress that has been made in the first week is making almost everyone nod their head in approval.
Work is starting at the far north end of Main Street. Crews from Bleigh Construction are speeding along tearing up the old sidewalks and getting ready to pour concrete for new curbs, gutters and sidewalks.
"We are pleased, it seems like we're making real good progress. It looks like this morning we're trying to get the curb machine lined out to pour some curb and gutter. That will be nice, a lot sooner then I would have expected," Hannibal City Engineer Mark Rees said.
But as construction is on both sides of the street between Hill and North, that won't be the case from Hill south to Broadway. As crews move south, they'll work one side of the street, get it finished and then jump to the other side and get it completed as well before moving to the next block.
"That is the plan, if they were to think about starting on this next block I hear the plan is to do one side at a time, they would need enough time to take it out and put it back before the Folklife Festival, so hopefully that will be the way it happens," Rees said.
Once all of the sidewalks are poured, along with the new curbs and gutters, the street will be milled down and a new layer of asphalt will be the final piece to this project that totals about $828,000.
The city is taking into consideration the folk life festival, the holiday shopping season, twain on main and national Tom Sawyer Days next year to determine when construction will stop to allow those festivals and events to proceed without any interruption.
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